Little went right for the Bills' quarterback in a frustrating game Thursday night against the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to willing the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 defeat.
Allen took back-to-back tackles for loss on the team's last drive, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (with seven wins) gained significant yardage on a short pass from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a backward pass to Khalil Shakir.
After a false-start penalty led to a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, a Texans defender intercepted the quarterback's pass at the 9-yard line with 24 seconds left.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the end,” Josh Allen said. “Our team performed a solid job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and we didn’t.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to get anything going on a evening he was brought down a career-high on eight occasions and pressured four other times. The QB threw for 253 passing yards with two interceptions and zero scores after producing six touchdowns in a win over Tampa Bay the previous week.
Whenever they pressure our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe way to play and it’s not a good way to keep our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We’ve got to improve our performance.”
Allen was sluggish to rise after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was OK and that his left shoulder “went a little numb” after he fell on it awkwardly. He was asked about being hit so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I ran into a couple personally. I need to be better at disposing of the football. On multiple occasions, I was losing ground.”
The Bills' QB surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had 2.5 sacks to top the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and the defender got up and chased him downfield to drop him for an 18-yard deficit to force a punt in the third quarter.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game absent receiver Keon Coleman after he was once more a non-participant after he was late to a squad gathering before their last game. He was earlier held out for the first series of a loss to New England in the fifth week after also being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I thought he had a improved week, but we are taking it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we opted for the players that give us the best chance.”
Shakir led the Buffalo with eight receptions for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 yards and a touchdown.
Allen was frustrated that the team couldn’t make plays down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must perform, and we failed to do a good job of that tonight,” he concluded. “No matter the situation and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”
